The Invisible Women's Club

This was a 5* read for a while, but tailed off a bit at the end. The title and cover design suggest that it is light chick lit for older women, about a bunch of feisty older ladies confounding the expectations of the young and prejudiced. At first, that impression seems to be wrong. The moving descriptions of Janet's desperate loneliness and failings really got to me. I thought it was  going to be a much deeper read than I had expected. Then it  reverted to type, and the feistiness comes to the fore. It's still very good though. A really good story, with a good range of characters, beautiful descriptions, and some tense moments. I will want to read more by this author.

I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory  issues. Read them at your peril! -
Janet, 72,  lives alone, has no friends at all,  no family. She assumes that any friendly overtures are pity. Her one solace is her allotment, where she tends her patch of rare and medicinal plants for a strict time period everyday. Her fellow allotmenteers mostly avoid her. Then disaster strikes the council announce that Japanese knotweed has been found on the allotments, and they are declared a biohazard and are to be closed. But all is not as it seems. Janet sets out to find out who is at the root of the dastardly doings, and prove it,  unexpectedly aided by her neighbour, Bev, and her ex-GCHQ colleague, Glynis.